Interdisciplinary sustainability knowledge in the field of management is often perceived as lacking relevance for practical applications in the field. This then hinders progress towards a more sustainable business. In this chapter, we discuss why the practitioner-academic gap exists including knowledge transfer problems, knowledge production problems and philosophical problems. We reflect on whether the gap is simply unbridgeable or whether it is possible to find solutions such as improved communication of scientific knowledge and collaboration.

We illustrate our literature review with the case of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) flagship executive education program. This initiative is part of the WBCSD’s commitment to sustainable development by educating business leaders on possible pathways from business-as-usual to a sustainable future. The program initiative aims to bring interdisciplinary knowledge attached to the sustainability agenda and apply this to practice. The learnings of bridging the practitioner-academic gap in this initiative are creating a shared goal, retaining ownership and creating multilingual translators all of which are key for future endeavours that aim to transfer interdisciplinary knowledge.

Keywords: interdisciplinary, sustainability, practitioner-academic gap, collaboration, knowledge

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-06924-6_12